ONCE upon an afternoon in summer time it was that our story begins, nine hundred winters and twenty since our Lord was born. Swein and his people had been but seven winters at Greenodd; yet they had built a good house, and cleared land to farm it and made the place look something like home.

So one afternoon before summer was over, Unna sat rocking her baby Thorstein to sleep, and sewing as she stirred the cradle with her foot, and singing as she sewed. She wore a gown of ruddy colour, long sleeved; with a kerchief round her neck, and a housewife's apron; but because she was of high birth, she had a gold band like a crown round her head, and her yellow hair was tucked about it and fell away unbraided from under a white headrail. A silken pocket hung from her belt, and on her finger was a gold ring; but her jewels for the most part were locked away in a kist, against high-days and holidays. For this was a working day, and everyone was busy.

Most folk were out of doors that time of year; only the mother was at home, minding the baby after her morning's turn round the farm; and to keep her company, an old nurse, who being a brisk body, was putting in a spell of work at a standing loom of the ancient make. She threw the shuttle slowly, and combed up the web but slackly, for the afternoon was warm, and the sun beat upon the roof of the house and made it hot. For the house was like one of our barns with its rafters and beams unceiled; and though it was heavily thatched, the air was hot within. It was somewhat gloomy too, in spite of the bright sheen that lay on field and fell. Though door and porch door stood open, the rest of the place was lit only by the smoke-hole in the roof. Through the hole a ray of sunlight shot across the hall, and caught on the chain of the hanging lamp, and lit up the thin smoke that rose in the midst. For the hearth fire was never let out if they could help. Even in summer it was needed morning and evening for their cooking, and had to kindle from fire-stones and rotten sticks. So as wood and peat were plentiful, it was smothered between whiles just to keep it alight, and thus went on from year's end to year's end.

The hearth was in the middle of the floor, raised a little and paved with cobbles set in sammel clay. One could sit round it, working and tale-telling, and watching acorns and crab-apples roast, and the boiling of their porridge in the great pot that hung by an iron crook and a chain from the house-beam overhead. And grand times they had of winter's evenings with their great fires of dry twigs -- chats, we call them -- or else logs of which one end was out at the door while the other was blazing under the black pot, slowly burning away. They tell a tale of an old house where such a log had been keeping the fire up for three days, when! whoop! Out flew an owl.

Up through the gloom and the little space of sun went the thin blue smoke, like a stripe of rain from April clouds. At the roof it was caught by the chimney flue, which was covered like a belfry with a flagstone laid flat upon pillars, but opening out beneath and crossed by the house-beam. In the smoke hung the last hams and dried yeast of the year before. For at the back end of the year they always hung their fresh meat against the winter, and Unna was too wise a house-wife to let them eat all up before the next store was laid in, however plentiful the season might be.

You must know this "firehouse" was the main hall and living room of the homestead. Bedcupboards there were alongside of it within the wall, and out-buildings; and a loft among the beams, and an earth-house or cellar dug out under the floor at one end of the hall .But the fire-house was the House, as one may say; and in a homely spot like this backwood bigging at Greenodd a thousand years since, everything went forward in the firehouse; cooking and eating, work and play, business and pleasure. This was their hearth and home.

At one corner were its door and porch opening upon the garth, and at the back part were out-buildings rising sharply up the hill behind. At the ends of the hall under the gables were great arks and kists against the wall, and at one end the aforesaid loom: but along the side were hung the men's weapons, spears and shields and coats of mail, and their hunting and fishing tackle, well out of the way, over long benches that lined the hall on either hand.

In the middle of the benches were two high seats, one on this side and one on that, over against it. They were like the great elbow-chairs or settles you see in old farm-houses; roomy enough for three, carved on their high backs, and with carved heads to their posts in front. The children had a tale that one head was father and one was mother: older folk would say the figures stood for Odin and Freya. Anyway they were something more than just ornaments: they gave a holiness to the place, and made the high seat of the master as it were a kind of temple-stall.

Before the benches on one side stood a long narrow table, all of oak, like the seats and the wainscoting and the rest, brown already with age and bright with rubbing; but on the other side the tables had been taken off their trestles and laid up to make more room, and because half their men were abroad with Swein at sea. On this side sat Unna in her own high seat with the cradle at her feet, and before her the hearth with its thin smoke going up, and the sun-ray striking through it, and blazing in the fern that was strewed on the floor. And when the sun-spot crept upon the cradle she stooped down and moved it a little backwards, so that the bright light should not wait the baby. And when she stirred she pushed the cradle with her foot and sang again while she sewed at her shirt. And the loom went clattering on with the steady noise that is good for babes' slumber. Nothing else was heard, except the birds singing in the green-wood around, and far-away clamour of people working in the fields.

When the baby was sound asleep again, Unna rose, and walked softly to see where his brothers might be: and her gown trailed on the ferny floor. She stood in the porch and called, but not too loudly, "Ho! Orm! Hundi! where are you? What are you doing?"

But they were off. And so she sat down again and sewed till her eyelids were heavy with the warmth and the dimness of the place.

"Eh, barn," she said, "what makes one so drowsy? Sleep by day and starve at night, they used to say."

"Most like a stranger is coming," said the old woman from the loom.

For it was thought that a man's fetch went before and brought slumber.

"Few strangers here but bad ones," said Unna.

"May be it's the master and the men."

"Why, they are gone but these three weeks, and who knows when they may come back, and how? And it's weary waiting and a deal on one's hands: let alone the chances of raid and robbery."

"What, there's Raud thy brother and all," said the old woman sharply. "And folk must live. It would be ill liked if the master never brought home an armful of finery, or another hand or so for the farm, or a barrel of somewhat sharper than we can brew."

"Aye, it's a lone spot: not that I complain: for Raud is a handy lad. It will be a bad day when he takes land upbank, as he talks of doing."

"Nay, never heed his talk. He must light on some one fit first," answered the weaver: "and how will he do that hereaway, I'd like to know? As for thy man, and my man, and the rest, they are men, with hands to their elbows and heads on their shoulders."

"Or had, you may say, to start with," said Unna with a sigh.

"Heads, aye, and know their ways about. Look at my old man. These forty winters he has come back to me the same as ever."

"Aye, he has a cat's life, has old Toli."

"Not so old as that comes to, neither," said the crone. "And thankful we should be for our good men and for a good roof over us. Eh, child, when I think on all we have come through."

"No fells, no dales," said she: "no loom, no clatter;" but she hastened to add "I am out of sorts today. There's overmuch to be done before they come, to redd all up for the back end. There are his sarks which were put by at the washing, and I warrant never rightly smoothed. I wonder where the lasses have put the linen-glasses." And she got up and walked uneasily to the wardrobe kists.

"Nay, barn, let it be: it's none of thy job," said the old woman; muttering to her loom, for there was nobody to hear. "The mistress is queer and fidgetty to-day. One might think somewhat was going to happen."

The lasses were raking hay, and the round knobs of glass which they used to smooth linen were not where they should have been. Unna went again to the door. Over the water, and all round, wooded hills shook in the heat-haze. She shaded her eyes and looked once more for Orm and Hundi, but nought she spied. She came back and sat on a stool against her high-seat, and tried to sew. But the sun-spot crept on to her lap, like some little wounded animal, dragging itself painfully to refuge there. It shone through her work, and through her fingers, so that they seemed blood-red: and it dived into the red stone in her ring, and made it redder than blood: and it burned on the gold like the whole sun itself, a blaze of mystery, a dream of glory.

Clitter-clatter the loom went on. "Poor soul," said the old woman: "best thing she can do" -- as she saw Unna's tired head sink back against the post of the high-seat, and her long white throat slide out of the white neckerchief, and her chin heaved up, like a blown wild rose leaf, warm in the reflected sunshine.

Then in the stillness the sun-spot dragged itself off her hand and off her lap, and tumbled to the floor again in one roundel, just like a bubble that gathers itself together in the dark pool under the waterfall, out of the shattering of the spray: a dream of death.

NOW we leave Mistress Unna and baby Thorstein asleep, to tell about Orm and Hundi and how they floated boats. Those boys had run off to the workshop where smithying was done, and found a heap of chips and shavings, and made each of them a boat, with a thin shaving for a sail; like the lad Harald (Hardradi they called him later) when Olaf the Saint asked him what were those chips and shavings. "My war-ships," said he. Of course they must away to the beck, as nobody was there to shout after them. So they ran over the cobble-paved garth between the byres, and out at the gate of the turf wall that stood about the "town." Then they were at the boat-landing, among planks and rollers, ropes and chains, and the delicious smell of tar that hung about the boat building sheds, and reeked in the hot sunshine.

The shore was steep, and shelving into a dub just there: so they ran downbank towards the flats that open out below the point. Under the crags and fir-trees of the nab they had to scramble over rocks and stones, and to splash through salt pools left by the outgoing tide: but soon they came to a stretch of rippled sand between hill and firth, and waded a beck that flowed from the woods and wound northward along their edge to join the Leven.

"Ha!" said Orm, "now we are on my fairy island. It is all gold, and yon side the beck runs up. Now we are on my holm, and I will fight thee for thy boat."

So Orm beat Hundi, and ran off with both the boats and pushed them from the shore until they sailed downbank with the tide. There was no one to cry for, so Hundi held his peace: he brushed his eyes with his hand and pattered on, his bare feet crisping the soppy sand ripples, and leaving their points in a chain of little tarns. And when he came to the next bend in the river, lo and behold his own boat came straight to shore and into his hands, while the boat that Orm had made was rocking in mid-channel with its sail draggled in the water. Orm began to throw handfuls of sand over it, to draw it in: and while they were intent on this job and keeping no look out, suddenly they heard shouts not far off, and the clash of oars, and a great craft swung round into that reach and bore down upon the chip boat. A moment they stood dumbfounded, and then turned and ran for the woods like young rabbits, For in those days it was no idle threat when mothers said to truant boys -"Mind you don't go out of sight, for fear a man catches you."

But just when the throb began to beat very hard in their throats, and they were stopped by the steep crumbling banks of the little beck that bounded the holm, they heard, like a shepherd calling sheep, "Ho, Orm! ho, Hundi! ho!" and they turned and looked: and then looked at one another with bright eyes and panting too much to laugh. They set off running back to the ship, which they knew well enough now. The rowers had easied and brought her close to the edge of the sandbank: and that could well be done, for she drew very little water and was nigh flat bottomed. Swein, with a brown square face, and bushy fair beard, and bright blue eyes laughing out of the locks of his tawny hair, came wading ashore. He caught up one child under each arm, waded out again, and hoisted them to hands aboard. Then catching at the gunwale near the steering oar, he raised himself half-length and vaulted over. The water dripped from his gartered hose and blue kirtle skirts: for his mail-coat was doffed, and he wore only a belted kirtle or blouse over his white linen sark.

"Eh, father, mother will snape thee for getting of thyself in a mess! said Hundi compassionately. "But never heed her: I'll say it was to fetch us aboard." "But my dragon is wrecked," grumbled Orm.

"And is that all you have to say to your old father when he comes home?"

"Nay," said Orm, looking round coolly, "what have ye brought me?"

"No great things, barn, this trip," said Swein, with half a smile, as he took the steering oar.

"Now then, lads, all's well, by this token. The barnes say little, but there is enough of it, and enow of them. Forward all now; a spurt to finish our day's work, Lift her! here she goes, Lift her!"

A dozen of long blades, six a side, with a couple of men at each, churned the sandy shallows, as the boat swept round the curve and up stream. Long in the keel and low in the board she was, with swinging curves at stem and stern rising swan-like to the figure-head and the carved stern-post. But the ugly dragon mask was taken off the bows, now that they were near home: for it was a belief among these people that the land-wights, good fairies and useful brownies, would be scared by such a sight, or at least take it in dudgeon, and depart. So the figure-head had a good face for home-waters, and a hideous one to put on when they got out to sea and to work among strangers. The gunwales were notched into dog-tooth markings and what old wives call box-pattern in their quiltings. The strong upstanding tholes were curiously carved with knots and worm-twists. Great oars were lashed to these tholes and the rowers stood to their work and pushed the handles. There was a step for a mast forward, but the mast and yard were lying along the gangway that ran between the ranks of rowers, from the decked forecastle to the quarter deck; and the sail, useless today, was wrapped about the spars. There was little else to be seen: the few bales or chests she might carry were stowed below, and her decks were clear, as if at any moment she might meet with an enemy. Over the gunwale hung the men's shields, a dozen aside, each by its strap from its own pin, and ready to be caught up in the twinkling of an eye. Black and gold they were painted for the most part, and if one was more black then the next was more golden, as they made a fine show from without.

Every man aboard was a sturdy fellow, who would go through with it, whatever he took in hand; bronzed with the sun and great-thewed with downright hard work. Some of the were Swein's own Northmen from the Isle of Man, old comrades and followers of former days: some were Welsh of the country, his bought servants, but trusty men under a good leader. They were all his house-mates, or lived in cots of their own hard by.

So now that they were near home they laid to with a will. The children played helping father with the steering sweep, which knocked them over every time it was put up or down. Swein gave the stroke, faster and faster as the landing place came in sight, with his "Lift her"!" and they made her spin up the last reach. Round she went, and half-way up the bank ploughing the sand. Orm and Hundi tumbled on the deck laughing. Then out men leapt, and ran her up on her rollers above high-water mark, as they were used with these light flat-bottomed craft. The easier it was, for by now they were spied and recognised from the fields, and a dozen farm servants had run down to lend a hand.

SWEIN was in his own high seat, and while the din lasted ate like another, looking now and then but shyly though the hearth-smoke at Unn over against him. At last "Eat, Unna!" he cried, "and take thy supper. One would think I was a merman, and stared at for a show. Sup thy porridge, lass, and be hearty."

"I have supped," she said, "and supped well."

"Supped with her eyes," said old Toli for here he was, holding out his empty horn. "A big supper, too, but a dry one."

"I've seen her eat nought," said Swein. "What has she supped on?"

"Thee," said Toli. "Eh, Mistress?"

But Unna, though she was used to the uncourtly ways of her own folk and could laugh at a rough jest, was less at ease than she had hoped to be. When the meal began, she had looked lovingly across at her man, making out his features one by one through the dimness and the smoke, watching for the open smile that he was used to give her, on such nights as these of home-coming, when his first hunger was stayed and the feasting was forward: the free smile and friendly nod that signalled all's well. But this time it was long in coming: and she got only the half glances and the rough and puzzling "Eat, child." Her eyes filled with tears, and her mind flew to chances of mishap. There were all the men back, and no wounds to be seen: the ship was safe: what could it be? Some woman in the case. What else? And her quick wit, wrong for once, revealed to her, like a lightning flash, a whole story of dismay.

Men were fed by now, and they drank healths, first to Odin for the kinsfolk, and then to Niord and Frey for peace and plenty. When they were come to the cup for Bragi -- he was the god of talking and of tale-telling and song, -- it was Swein's old use and wont to begin the story of his doings and travellings since the last farewell, and to hold them all till midnight wrapt in the tale. This time he put down the horn untested: and when they waited for him in wonder, suddenly hushed, he thrust the table from him, and went forth.

Unna looked at Raud her brother, signing with her eyes as much as to say "What now?" and the sign he gave was a nod towards the door.

"Aye, mistress," said Toli, "till him, and wheedle him back. To think of folk leaving good ale for an idle whim,"

"What then?" she said, flashing back at him, while Raud made room for her.

"Nought that matters: nay, never ask of me."

With a beating heart she went though the porch and her knees trembled as she passed. Swein was going slowly though the garth, slackening his pace, though he neither turned nor looked; but yet it seemed as if he wanted to be overtaken.

There is a steep path up the cliffs a little to the seaward of the houses, mounting rapidly at first over the crags by rude steps in the rock, and then though the great rough stems of ancient fir-trees, and between thickets of blackberry brambles, until it comes out upon a clear space on the top. It is not so far that one need halt to take breath by the way, and yet lofty enough for the eye to sweep north, south, east and west, down the firth and up the valley, and across to the far-away fells.

This was Swein's howe, where he went daily and often-times a day, to watch the bright line of the sea, if by chance a sail might be made out, friend or foe or merchant vessel cruising round the coast. There also he could overlook his land; for the acres of oats and barley and the hay-fields lay close beneath, around the mouth of the Crake, His own summer pastures were on the fells hard by, and his swine fed in the woods around. He could see what was doing, and what was left undone, from that howe: count men and beasts, and hear the sounds of work going on in smithy or shed. Here he would take counsel with himself about new dealings with this man and that, and lay his plans and dream over his enterprises. And when there was trouble or when things went aslew, it was on this howe that he sat to wrestle with his thoughts. And it was his mind when he should be dead to be buried there and look out from his grave upon his children and his home, and the kind land that had given him a resting-place from his wanderings.

He sat down upon the turf seat on the top, and Unna, who had tripped lightly after him, sat down alongside.. He rested both elbows on his knees as one ashamed to speak, but moved not away. What can it be? was her thought.

For now the sun was set in the gold half of the sky, and the other half was clear pansy coloured, with a round moon rising through the fringe of dusky woods. Below them the tide was flowing in, and the wash of it was heard in the stillness: the great rings and bows of the river in front swung about and along the silvery flats, like the track of a skater on ice. And against the northern glow far away, sharp violet ridges of distant mountain stood around them, serene, above the tumbling forest and rich promontories of Crake and Leven.

"WELL, wife," said Swein at last, "I am trapped, seemingly. It is stand and deliver, is it? What, there is nothing so dreadful after all, turn and turn it over as one may. But that is not to be judged: I suppose I must put my case, and tell my story.

"How we set off I need not tell. We came to Carnforth, and here we met most of our neighbours from the countryside. There was Arnold out of Duddoner-dale, Raven and Ulfar, Orm and Hauk from Furness-way; and Arni was there on the spot, for he lives hard by, And it was his folk looked after the ships of us that came by water; and other friends from over the sands. We took counsel together, and agreed that being summoned to this meeting, be it peace or war, we should go: but that we should keep together and make one hand, for it is ill dealing with folk that are neither folk nor kin.

"Thou knowest, Unn, that we reckoned this bit of land was no man's land until we came and took it. Northward beyond the fells the Welsh hold themselves under the rule of Donal mac Ædh, the Strathclyde king; but never did I hear of his coming into these parts or having a power on Morecambe coasts. Across there in Cartmel they say they belong to the minster priests in York, and be no king's men at all: and beyond that again, if Ragnar Lodbrog's sons did ever take the land, neither English nor Dane in Kentdale or Lunesdale has paid shot to York for many a year. Less than fifty years ago, after Halfdan the Old sacked Carlisle and laid all these parts under him, and began to settle them from the eastward, then I grant you, this would be in the Danelaw. But now that there is no law in York, but only these rascally bearsarks of Danes sacking and slaying up and down, why, look you, we owe them nothing, and need but keep together to be our own men like the Icelanders. And this talk was held to be but fair and good, and took hands all round upon it.

"So we got horses at the bank where the old road meets the sands, and came to a burg called Lancaster where we had to meet the main part of the host from the north. The burgers gave us what we wanted with little ado: a handful of chapmen and cowpers who trade with travellers on the great highway. But I thought they grinned a little when we talked of going against the Saxons.

"Well, in a day or so there is a great trumpetting and booming, and up marched men from Constantine the Scots king and his brother Donal of Strathclyde, and among them Ketel and others of our own men from Cumberland, and some from Galloway: and it was hail fellow with many an old friend.

"'It seems we are but short-handed' said I: or is the Saxon king of less account than we reckon for?'

"With that they laughed outright, and the cat came out of the bag, tail and all: for they told us flatly that there was no fighting to be thought of: but only a great meeting of all people in Britain under their kings and earls.

"'And pray what king do you reckon us to be under?' said I to Ketel.

"'Well,' said Ketel, 'Donal flatters himself because I have taken up my abode in his borders, that I am his man. I remember well, when I first met him, what a wagging of beards there was. Some were for hunting us out, at which the old whiteheads turned pale, though I made as if I understood none of their dim saisnaeg. By and by the whitest beard of all made a terrible long-winded speech, setting forth how, if they turned us out, there would be swarms more of us revenging ourselves upon them: and how there was land enough and to spare on the holms and flats by Dundraw: and how, when we Northmen were let alone we were decent merchants, buying goods and servants. He said we always had plenty of money and brought trade to the country-side: and he wound up in a flowery way -- I could understand him well:- Look you, says he, waving his old skinny arms about. These white strangers (for they call us white, and the Danes black, and right they are to my thinking) these strangers, says he, will be a soft bolster to our heads. When hard knocks come, they will get them, and we shall feel the less -- So they blethered and clattered like crows, and in the end let us be: and here we are!'

"'Well, Ketel Bolster,' said I -- eh, how they did laugh -- 'If Donal suits thee for lord and master, he suits not me.' At which Ketel would at me, and I would have beaten him well, only they stood in and stopped us.

"Next day we trotted along the great high road. It's a strange thing, Unna, that folk ever took the trouble to heap hard stones together for nought but to walk on. But there it goes up hill and down dale, through bog and brink: and everly built with cobbles, for all the world like a great long hearth spot, and as straight as an arrow-flight from day's end to day's end. They told me it was folk from Romeburg that built it; though what they could have done it for, I know nought: unless it were a priest's trick to mark out the Church gate. Anyhow it was hard riding clitter-clatter on the cobbles all day long: I had rather have galloped over the green grass: but keep together was the word, for there were but few of us, and with such a pack of Welsh and Scots before and behind, one never knows what might happen.

"The next night we harboured at a spot they called Ribblechester, and the next at Manchester, which is a pretty place, and one would have thought a strong work enough to hold against any comers: but the Saxons took it last summer from those lubberly Danes. I fell in talk with the goodman where they lodged us, and it seemed that not only in Manchester, but all the Danelaw, had a got a thorough fright of the Marchmen and the Saxons, and they were hastening to this meeting like thralls to supper, each afraid to be last man in.

"'And who are they?' say I.

"'Why,' says he, 'everybody of account, but in especial the new king of York.'

"'New King?' say I.

"'Aye,' says he: 'Ragnwald Ivarson.'

"'What!' say I; 'Ragnwald, the rascal? He was at Waterford but a while since, and then in Scotland; what is he doing here?'

"'Why,' says he, where in the round world is thy den, man or mountain bear?'

"'Softly,' say I: 'Swain is my name and Bear's son is my breeding. Swain's fist or bear's paw, which wilt have?'

"'No offence, guest,' says he: 'But I thought every one knew that Ragnwald beat the Scots and Saxons at Tynemoor --'

"'Well!' say I.

"'And marched into York.'

"'Marched into hell!' said I.

"'No such thing: there he is, and thou wilt see him at the king's mote, for he will be there to make his peace with Eadward and be confirmed in his kingdom.'

"''He shall see me,' said I, 'and get other peace than he wots of.'

"For Unna, never a day passes but I think of that fight off Man, and our good Bard's ship going down with the Dane's iron beak through her ribs.

"Well, this day we rode over fells they called Peak to Bakewell, and if it was forecast at Manchester, here was sooth. Hardly were we within sight of the place, but a flock of horsemen comes spurring out to meet us, and after some parley makes a lane for us to pass through, one by one, like sheep counted into a fold: and of each a jack-in-office asks name and nation and so forth before he may go his ways. And when we come among the houses, which were as thick as trees in a wood, we must halt till we are told off to our lodgings: and there we must bide until it please the Saxon king to see us. Not but that we were well bestowed for bed and board: and to see the sights was something. Houses, I say, for ever, and nigh upon all of them new built or even in the building. Strangers from all parts of the land; why, from all the round world it seemed. And all day and every day market in the lanes and open places, and wares to be bought the like of which I never saw, not even on Dublin strand when the fleet comes in. What little I had of silver in my bag soon went: but it passed the time to chaffer and turn the wares over. I got a bit of a scarf: the cowper said it came from Micklegarth and maybe beyond: even he was all the way from Londonburg. I paid a pretty penny for it, and yet thought I was making a good bargain. Mayhappen you will shake your head: but don it first. There are two or three trifles beside in a kist the lads will bring up and we can unpack tomorrow.

"All this while no Ragnwald was to be seen, and I began to reckon nought of the Manchester man's tale. At last comes jack-in-office, and bids us to the Saxon king: and in we go: over a bridge and through a gate in the stout oaken wall new cut: and there is a yard in the midst, full of his housecarles, and one could not but see with half an eye that they were big fellows and their weapons were of the best.

"I need not tell thee, Unna, what a king's house is like: but this hall was a sight to see, for its bigness without, and within for its hangings and carvings and gold and silver: yet most of all for the king we have heard tell about sitting on his high seat, all gold, with his high crown and gold staff: and his earls and priests in gold cloaks and caps, holding their crooks like so many warlocks: and indeed who knows what spell they were casting over us? Anyhow there were the Scots and the Strathclyde Welsh, down on their knees, like men bewitched, and their hands in the king's hands, saying after one that stood by - 'We take thee Eadward to be our father and lord, and father and lord of all our folk.' And then came the earl of Lincoln and a scrow of Danes, and did likewise, only that they made oath on the ring, for they are not Christian men like those that went before. And with them Ragnwald.

"Unna, lass, I was mad wrath when I saw him, and I could have run upon him there: only Ulfar held me by one arm and Ketel by the other, and said 'Peace, man, at a mote!' And then stood one forth in the silence, and spoke, 'Forasmuch as you have commended me to our king Eadward, king of Angles and Saxons, and overlord of Cornwall and of Gwynedd and of all the Welsh, to be his men, each and all of you --'

"'Nay, not I,' cried a voice: they said it was mine, though I knew not I spoke, for I was that angry. But you may guess if there was a haybay and swords drawn. They plucked me by the sleeve and shouted in my ears 'Peace, man, peace!" I tried to get at my sword, and looked for Ragnwald first. But the Saxon king sat still on his high seat, and waved his wand, and men were quiet again and I standing thrust out in the midst.

"'Come hither, good friend,' he said, speaking very fair and slowly, so that I could understand him well, for the Saxon tongue is hard to hear at first: 'Come nigh and tell me what ails thee.'

"And I marched up to the high seat, and said I, 'Nothing but this, king; that I have sworn nought to thee: and I see my enemy standing there.'

"'Softly, good man,' said the king; 'this is a hallowed mote: if all foes were here to fight, we should eat each other up.' And he smiled, Unna, and I could not but laugh too, for I thought of yon Irish cats thy mother used to tell of.

"''And who is thy foe?' says Eadward.

"''Ragnwald Ivarson.'

"With that, out steps Ragnwald as proud as a peacock.

"''I never set eyes on the carle,' says he.

"'But I know thee, Ragnwald,' said I; 'and well I mind the day when thy ship ran Bard's down, seven years ago, off Man.'

"'And is that all?' said he.

"'Come,' said Eadward: 'this day we let bygones be bygones. Have I nothing against Ragnwald, thinkst thou? And were Bard Ottarson's folk sackless of scathe to me and mine? Who art thou, good fellow, and whence?'

"So I told him my name and where I lived: and the upshot of it was that Eadward says, 'Well, then, if I let thee dwell there in peace, wilt thou leave thy neighbours in peace?' "What could one say but Aye?

"Now, all this while was the high priest muttering and making signs at me, and doubtless I was bewitched. For I looked in the king's eyes and clean forgot about Ragnwald, and all the mind I had to live and die my own man, and no king's man. The people in the hall seemed to be in a dream, and there were I and Eadward only. He reached out his hand to me, and my hand was in his, and the ring fell from his arm upon mine. 'Kneel, man kneel!' cried the bystanders: but Eadward smiled, like one who has mated you in chess.

"'Take hands on a bargain,' he said: that is the Northman's way, is it not? Nay, then, keep the ring, friend Swein.'

"And there it is," said Swein, casting a gold armlet on the turf. "The bull's snout-ring, I call it: the thrall's collar."

"And is that the tale?" said Unna, stooping to pick it up. "Oh, man! Serve the best and spurn the worst. I am weary of this wandering and warring; I would fain end our days as this day ends."

And the moon cast a great stream of light along the Leven.

"I thought there could be no welcome for a nithing like me."

"Welcome?" she said. "Thrice welcome for the best tale of these ten years: a thousand welcomes if the peace but hold good."

THREE winters wore and three summers came: and Eadward still ruled the land in peace. But, about hay-harvest there were rumours, at which Swain nodded to his wife as one who says "You see I was right." And when hay-time was well passed, came people from over the fell bidding him to a meeting at Ulfar's town.

Now this Ulfar, of whom we spoke before, had land on the brink of the fells where they met the low country, about an hour's journey to the southward of Greenodd. He was an old man, and he had been a chieftain formerly, and was a man of worth even now, and a stickler for old times and the old laws.

Near his "town" (as we still call hereabouts any cluster of dwellings though it be nothing like a city) and between it and the waterside, there was a broad mound, not so high, but standing by itself: from which could be seen a great ring of country all round: across the firth, Cark and Cartmel way, and all the Sandgate, that is the road across the sands of Leven, and whosoever was coming and going, for good or ill: and then again westward to Pennington, where the Pennings lived.

They were an ancient family of English kin long ago settled there, and busied at whiles in getting red iron ore out of the iron pits hard by, and smelting it and forging it. They were great smiths, and used charcoal in their furnaces or bloomeries as we call these old works. The charcoal was got from the woods that in old times covered all the country: but by now these Pennings had cleared a deal of ground: there was the Swartmoor between their town and the old road, called so, maybe, from the burning that had gone to clear it. And so much iron they made that they were glad to sell it to the merchants who came in ships up the firth. When Ulfar came, at first they were angry, and fought with him: but when they found that for all their smith's cunning they could never give him the smith's stroke, as the saying is, they came round to the mind of Donal's counsellors that Ketel told of. They made peace with Ulfar, and found that he was an honest man and abiding by his word. When he offered to take their ironmongery and sell it for them, better than the cowpers who had come before, they were glad of it, and did all the brisker business in his company: and in the end they settled down into good neighbours and friends.

When the Northmen came into Furness, beside the Pennings they found a few English and some Welsh here and there. There were Welsh in the low land over against Walney, and Rhos they called the meadow-land thereabouts. There were already villages between that and Dalton and up to Broughton and Duddon and priests, no doubt; but such as heard little of any English bishops, or what we should call government whether of church or state. Across at Cartmel the land and all the Welsh that were on it had long ago been given to York Minster; but Furness was a bit of that broad debatable ground over which the tide of invasion flowed from age to age and ebbed back again, just like the sea upon Morecambe shores. As time went on, here a piece of sand was fully reclaimed, and there a piece of land was swallowed up by the tide. So also it is hopeless now to seek any fixed boundaries of the people or of their language a thousand years ago: we can only find here and there an English or a Welsh name among the Norse.

But the Northmen sought the snuggest places for shelter and for safety. They always wanted a good landing spot for their flat-bottomed boats, so that when summer came, between sheep-shearing and corn harvest, they might use of their spare time by pushing out to sea and doing a little quiet trade, or may be at times you might call it "raid," up and down the coasts of the Irish Sea. And so they went on farming and seafaring, turn about, and picked up a better living the harder they worked at both.

Beside Ulfar there settled others of the Northmen along the coast. There would have been Raven at the south point of Furness, from whom we call Rampside and Ramsey. Beyond Barr-ey, that is Barley Island, there is Orm's Gill, and about it the villages into which his folk spread: Hawcott, the high cottage; Sowerby, the muddy farm; Sandscale, the shed by the sand; and so forth. Then up the Duddon firth there is Roanhead, that is to say the headland with the grove of trees, at one end of the road that goes from Leven sands by Dalton into Cumberland. Up the firth there is Duddoner-holme, the island of the Duddon, a fine spot for a stronghold; and opposite it Mealholm, the sandy isle, where in after times Millom castle was built; and a little higher beyond the Thwaites is the Wolveswater, or Ulfa, flowing into the great river that encompasses the land of Furness to the west and the north.

After a while, from these first settlements on the coast, land was taken up inbank by the families and followers of the first Viking settlers. Around Ulfar's town there were Rolf's seat, and Asmund's lea, and Hauk's fields. But in the lower land of plain Furness there were homesteads and hamlets of English at Urswick and Aldingham; and these the first comers of the Northmen do not seem to have taken by force or destroyed, for the names given by the English still remained to them. In a while, it is true, they fell to Norse owners, most likely by marriage and inheritance; so that in 150 years' time all the names of landholders in this art were names of Vikings, and later still the language that was spoken in Furness was still Norse, as the carved stone from the door of the ancient church at Pennington tells us by its Runic wording. Of all the Northmen in Furness our tale tells that Ulfar was the chief, both because he was a man of repute to begin with, and an early comer, and because he had got wealth from his trading and shipping iron to all parts. Being, as we said, a stickler for the old laws, Ulfar made a sacrificing place on that mound near his town among the trees that grew upon it. He set up an altar to worship Thor in that grove, and called it his Lund. To the feasts of the Lund he bade his neighbours; and they were glad to come, not only for the worship, and to be on good terms with the gods, but because there was a chance of meeting one another, and talking over their affairs. When anyone had a quarrel with his neighbour and there had been manslaughter or other misdoing, since there was no king to do justice they brought the case to Ulfar at one of these feasts, and he judged it according to the use and wont of the Northmen; so that Ulfar was called their Godi, or chief and priest. So many came, and long they stayed, as folk who had a good way to travel and were loth to return in a hurry, that about the Lund they built their booths to lodge in, and set up tents. Some brought wares to sell, and others started games and wrestling-matches: so that it was quite like a fair, at the great feasts after Yule and after sheep-shearing, and after corn-harvest, the seasons that stand for Ulverston fair to this day.

Well, as summer was passing on, Swein was bidden to a feast, and took boat and landed at the Hummerside and went up to the Lund. There men were all talking of the new king, and what should be done about him. For Eadward was now dead and Athelstan his son reigned in his stead; a stirring man, and not one to let the fire smoulder under his feet. Ragnwald also was dead, and in York the new king was another of the grandsons of Ivar, Sigtrygg the Crazy. The news was that he had marched out as soon as king Eadward was gone: but Athelstan was before-hand, and met him at Tamworth in the March, and there they made peace, and Athelstan gave Sigtrygg his sister Eathgita to wife, and confirmed him in his kingdom.

EVENING it was, when the afternoons were already beginning to lengthen, but before the frost was over. Thorstein came running in at his bed-time, and "Mother, mother," says he, "the fell's afire!"

Sure enough there was a sight to make the boldest heart shake in its step like a rickety mast. For it seemed that all the heavens were aflame; as though, beyond the high hills, woods and forests -- nay, the very mountains themselves were blazing in a light lowe. And one while, great sheets of wavering flame turned blood-colour, and the sky between them was green, and the stars faded away. Then it throbbed, and shifted, and changed like clouds of sunset, though the sun was long down and there was no moon. Swein and Raud and the rest of them were aught but cowards: but when they turned in, they saw one another pale as grass in the firelight and laughed but little that night. But what it might mean they disputed among themselves: and it was mostly thought that there would be bloodshed wherever that blood in the sky had shone.

There was another evening soon after when trading merchants came in a boat up the firth of the Leven. Such were never unwelcome in winter, when folk were at home and work was slack: there was time to rummage the wares and hear the news. These cowpers also found the coast a deal safer when no summer fighting was going on. As for storms, they were never out of sight of a shelter, creeping about the shore, picking up what they could, and always well entertained. They had come last from Cowprond, which was their "trading shore" and market-place with the Cartmel Welsh, where the old road met the Sandgate over the Leven. Greenodd was the only house up the firth, and it was not always that chapmen called there; and so they were made much of.

When they had got their packs up to the house, and when they had been served and suppered, out came news. For it seems that Sigtrygg had died, not long after that great fire-flaught in the heavens. "Aye," said the cowpers, "you may well cock your ears: others beside you guessed that great things would happen. But listen now, Swein Biornson and all.

"Folk said that there was foul play in that matter: and Sigtrygg's sons by the queen that was, the Irish-woman, charged it on the queen that is, the English-woman for whose sake the king had taken christening: but having won her, he went back on his word and took to sacrificing again. Upon which off she goes to her brother Athelstan, wed and yet unwed, as one may say. And then dies Sigtrygg. Athelstan, they say, knew as much about it as another: but that is only guess work and neither here nor there. Anyhow he is a brisk lad and sprack, not the man to see his sister put upon, right or wrong. Away he marches with a great power to York; and no sooner is he in sight, but Sigtrygg's sons show him their heels, the best way they could: and that was out by the back door, and away up the big North road, across the fells, till they come to Penrith in Cumberland: and there we lose sight of them. But they do say that Guthferth Sigtryggson started on the North road to visit Constantine king of Scots, and get shelter with him if he could: and Olaf Cuaran said goodbye to his brother and went west, as if to seek his uncle Guthferth, who is king now in Dublin. The question is What next? For you may be sure they will not rest, and the Irish and Scots will be glad of a chance for a throw at the young king -- the king of all England as he will reckon himself."

"And so that bad business at Bakewell comes to nothing?" said Swein. "I knew as much. But this lad Athelstan, by what you tell of him, must be a fine cockerel to crow so loud. And now I call to mind, he must have been the youngster that sat on the high-seat step at Bakewell: he with the bright eyes."

"Aye," said the chapman, "tall and slender: he would be some thirty winters old when you saw him: handsome and flaxenhaired: and ye will have noticed how his hair was all wreathed with gold threads. He's a real king to look at, though they say he is but the son of a shepherd lass whom Eadward his father lighted upon in his travels. And he is a good sort, they say, and has seen the world, and knows better than most kings how folk live. Why, he speaks our language like one of us, and has done a bit of seafaring. But for all that, he is a Saxon and he must stand by his own kin."

"Well, what are we to do? Knock him on the head?"

"To hold thy peace," said Unna, " is my advice: and watch the weather."

"A wise woman is my wife," said Swein, "and knows the weasel's trick. After all, we are free of our oath, and need not put our heads into the snare again."

"Laugh at the lightning when the storm has passed," said the chapman. "Athelstan with his power was at York awhile since, and may be in Lunesdale by now to foreset us."

"Let him come!" shouted Swein; "and hey for a gradely good stir-about, and pot luck for the sharpest claws!"

"Look you, master cowper, and all the rest," said Unna, "if you set up for eggbattles and put my man on shouting, I shall have those blessed barnes awake and on my hands all night. Swein Biornson is a good friend to all his friends but himself alone. We have seen a little fighting, to our sorrow: and the talk of the trade hangs about the tongue, like smoke in a half-way house. But here we are, and here we stay if we can. As for Swein, his bark is worse than his bite. He shaped well for a good farmer in Man before Ragnwald shifted us: and he shapes well for a good farmer now: and pity it were if we be plucked up by the roots again. These great kings and their powers come not where nothing is to be had but kale pottage and hard bats. I'll uphold it, Athelstan will be bound for the great burgs in the north, or connily on his way home again. And I should reckon it ill done of you good fellows to go abroad stirring up useless riot, or coming hither to entrap quiet folk into rash vows."

So the cowpers said they were but giving the news and meant no harm: and that it never had been their way to go talebearing and raising strife, nor never would be. At which Unna smiled, and got up to make them beds before the fire on the benches of the hall. When she saw them well furnished with rags to hap them and bolsters for their heads, she sent her folk to their chambers; put her knitting away into a basket; lit a rushlight in an iron candlestick; and bade them good-night.

Child Thorstein was fast asleep on the farther side of the bolster in their narrow lock-bed, with one sturdy dimpled arm stretched upon the quilted coverlet. Swein, sitting upon a kist to unlace his shoes, looked sleepily at him, and then at her, as she let a sheaf of yellow hair fall upon her white night-sark: and the rushlight on the shelf shone down through it, flickering in the draught from the little round window above: for the lock-bed was just like a berth aboard ship.

"Right thou art, Irish fairy," said he: "and always right. But ah, you women, you never felt the heartiness of a good fight."

RESTLESS they were that spring; and Unna was anxious and somewhat pettish when Swein talked over the chances of a war. For one good thing, however, he was eager to get forward with work at home, so that he might leave the place well redd up: and that pleased the mistress right well. So they put on until haytime, which is pretty early in the low fields by the waterside, and these were all they had under hay: for the summer-pastures on the fell were hardly stubbed, and far too stony for cutting with the ley.

They were all raking by the beck side, and the mistress was pouring ale to slocken them, and the boys were tumbling in the haycocks, when there was a terrible stir in the woods on the other bank. These woods were on a long hill that made a wall to the valley against Greenodd: and the fields lay between, and the tide ran up the Crake to the point where the valley narrowed and the fields ended, and there was a wath or fording-place. Dogs barked, men shouted, and swine squealed. They could see by the shaking of the boughs that something was going forward: most like a wild-cat hunt, they said to one another, and left it to the swineherds to deal with.

But presently there was a great splash in the ford, and out came an enormous man, half naked, with long red hair and red beard. He held one hand on high, carrying they could not see what. In his other hand was a huge ugly stock of tree. All the swineherds' dogs were after him, and the men too, for that matter: but he made no account of them, until one dog leaped at his legs as he came up the bank on the hither side. The big man turned and flicked him like a football, high in the air and splash in the water: and ran straight for Greenodd garth.

Swein and his men ran up to meet him with their rakes and forks, less afraid than puzzled. The big man never stayed until he came to the door, and then he thrust the thing he was carrying into a chink of the posts, and began talking to it in a strange tongue. He was indeed a giant, head and shoulders taller than any of the Greenodd men, but of quite another make: crane-legged and clumsy handed and jolter-headed; unlike Swein, who was no little fellow, though his strength was rather in the breadth of his shoulders and the ropy sinew of his wrist and forearm, like a seafaring man as he had been bred. They could make nothing of the giant's talk, but they saw that the thing he had brought was a war-arrow and token of fighting: but whence or why they could not guess. Presently came Unna; and listening to the man's talk she smiled, and began to answer him. The creature made her a low court-reverence, half haughty, half awkward, and spoke to her with a strutting way about him, like a cock upon pattens, as one may say.

When he had done, "Friends," she said, "this man's talk is like the talk of our Irish: and I gather this much of our discourse, that he is the messenger of a war-rising in the north: and bids you to a weapon-show beyond the fells, you and all the country side, whoever will cast in his lot against the Saxon king. And you are to send on the arrow to our next neighbours, and bid them likewise.

"Speer of him, Unna, where and when," said Swein.

So she asked him, and said his story was to the intent that he would come again in ten days' time to lead them over the fells by the bainest gate to the Saxon king and the Welsh king and their friends: and she added that she was sorry; but she doubted nothing of the man's faith, for there was the arrow.

Swein drew out the arrow, and gave it to one of his young men, and bade him carry it to Ulfar by the fell-path. The red stranger watched him start, and saw him run up the fell nimbly, and nodded his head: and then Ulfar signed that he should come to the house for a bite and a sup, and sent the servants back to their haymaking. He ate like a wolf, until little was left for supper; and stared about him in great wonderment at the house and all that was in it, especially at the three boys, who gaped at him, while they kept hold of their mother's gown. At last he made another of his reverences, and a speech to Swein: walked swiftly through the fields: splashed across the ford: and so vanished into the woods.

Now when the arrow came to Ulfar he was right glad, and sent it on far and wide, and bade all his neighbours meet at Greenodd. So to Greenodd came two-score men with their war-weapons: and what the giant had left they ate. But it was a point of honour to give to all comers: and in summer especially there was plenty for the trouble of killing and cooking. They set up tents in the mown field to lodge them, and being all good neighbours there was no rough play to speak of. As for the errand upon which they were come, they held their meeting on the field over against Greenodd across the ford of Crake.

LITTLE farewell they made, and set out, some on horseback and some on foot, these two-score men. The giant striding along led them through wild woods up hill and down dale. In the midst of the valleys and fells, they came upon the traces of an ancient path overgrown with brambles, and washed away wherever the becks crossed it. For a good while it ran along between hill and plain: and then it entered a narrow valley umbered with ancient trees, and wholly uninhabited. The path crossed the beck and crept up the side of a hill to the right hand, until it got above the tops of the trees and out on a heathy moor. From the brink of this moor the travellers could see a delightful lake lying in the valley beneath, among many little howes and hills, and all smothered up in dark green forest. Between the hills on the farther side there came peeps of blue water, here a little and there a little; to which the giant pointed, making signs with his hands that these bits of blue were all one great long winding mere. To which indeed they came, after travelling down from the high place past an old ruin by a river side where Hawkshead Hall stands now, and after toiling for more than a step through the overgrown and deserted pathways. If it had not been for their guide one would never have guessed that any pathway ran there at all, so hard to follow out was that old track in the forest, and so lonely and uncouth it seemed. Next morning their guide took them by a road along the valley until they came to another mere, a little one, under a great nab's scar: over whose axle they climbed about to another lake, not much larger, and with an island in the middle of it, and shores all overgrown with rushes and grass. The mountains around seemed to rise higher and wilder, and on one fell top was seen the likeness of a man crouching down, as if he would roll great rocks upon the road below. These looked at him again, but their guide took up a stone and pointed aloft, making signs that the man on the helm of the crag was no living wight, but a man of stone. And yet some of the Northmen were not sorry when they had passed to the other side of his crag, and saw him again in the mist as if he were asleep on his elbow. They were afraid of no mortal man, but they knew that this was a land of wonders and warlocks, and it could be seen that yon stone giant had heard them coming and had stirred in his sleep.

Not the least wonder was that road, running through wild forests, up and down rocks and hills, always straight forward, and paved with cobble-stones; no broken little path like the one that brought them to the water-head. Swein likened it to the Manchester road, and wondered if the Roma folk had been here too, where no churches were, and whether they had made that stone image on the fell for their god. And in this mood they climbed over a high hause where the mountains were at their wildest and rough screes fell down from the rocks on either hand though the ragged trees. And soon they had an adventure.

For on coming down from that pass, they found a stronghold of Welshmen that was called the city of Helvellyn. It was built on a rock above the swampy flats at the head of another lake, and fenced about with a great wall of huge stones. On one side was the mire, and on the other side rough rocky ground and a waterfall running down from the high mountains. The road came up to it, and turned sharp round to encompass it and to come in at the gate; and then, after passing through the houses, ran out again; and so to the cliffs overhanging the lake. A big man came out to meet them, swaggering, and dressed in strange ancient armour of iron fitted to his body like an iron skin. All the same he seemed very filthy, and sodden with drink. He gave them to wit in Welsh that he was governor of this border-land for the Cumbrian king, and seemingly a greater man than the king himself. "For," said he, "Owain and his father, son of Æth, are no Romans, like the old Donal that went before them. But I," says he, "am of Roman blood, and my name is Elphin map Rhydderch map Caradoc: and I let no man or woman pass without tribute."

"Ah!" said Swein, "here we have one of the folk who made this road. I guessed they were of the trolls' kin. Look you friends, no iron will bite upon him."

And since the fellow would not let them pass, Swein with little ado smote out his fist, as it might be to try what would happen: and the brainpan of Elphin was cracked against his own stone door post. Their guide gazed awhile upon him, and turned him over with his foot, saying nought but "Aigh!"

At this place they stayed awhile, and the people brought them honeymead to drink: and it seemed as though Swein was made much of, and pointed out by the women and children, who came thronging to the door of the house where he sat: and at their departure a crowd followed them along the road, beckoning with their hands and making merriment. Swein thought they were glad to be rid of the long-named carle, Roman or no Roman

Then the road took them on the edge of wonderful great cliffs by the brink of a long mere. Halfway along the mere was a narrow place, and a wath, near which were houses, poor enough, of men who seemed to be the giant's kin, and there our travellers stayed for the night. Next morning they crossed the wath, and at the foot of the lake they came to a place where four dales met among high mountains and crags. And here there was a sweet spot alone in the wilderness, with cleared meadow-land and a little brook coming down from Helvellyn through the leas, to meet the great river that ran from the lake, and turning sharply round went by a deep valley. Afterwards they called this river Gretá, which is as much as to say the Stony water; and there is none indeed that has a rougher bed. They took notice of this dale because of its sweetness in the midst of wild rocks and forests, and because it is not often one sees four dales meeting in one spot like the rays of the sign of Thor.

But their path led them onward through the deep dale of the Gretá, with crags on one hand and a roaring river or spreading swamps on the other side of it, at the foot of the mountain Blencathra, their path struck a great road which led them eastward. By nightfall they came to another of those ancient foursquare strongholds: and hard by, across a little dell, the army of the Welsh lay at Penrhydderch.

DACOR was then, as it is now, the name of a village in a pleasant vale, on the border between the plain country of Cumberland and the hills of Lakeland. Among the mountains at that time were dwelling only wild Welsh, and still wilder fell-folk of Gaelic kin and tongue. But in the plain country were many homesteads of English and Danes, dotted here and there beside the old high-road. The Danes were new comers, who had crossed the waterparting, the Keel of England as one may say, as they talked of the Keel of Norway. But the English were old inhabitants since the days of Ecgfrith and other great kings, whose heirs ruled at Bamborough, though in diminished splendour, until Athelstan took their realm to himself.

They were Christian people, and had priests and monks among them. One of their churches was at Dacor; and near by, a monastery. A church is there yet on the spot: as for the monastery nobody knows where it stood; but it was doubtless in that valley with the lovely winding beck and among the acres of corn and pleasant meadowlands, which the monks had cleared and tilled, bordering on the wild home of rocks and wolves. The Welsh of Penrith and Penruddock and Blencow lived thus alongside of Danes and English: not always quiet neighbours perhaps, but yet on some terms of neighbourhood: and if not good subjects to Owain kind of Cumbria, still reckoned within his borders.

So when Athelstan had news about the plots of Owain and Constantine to put back Sigtrygg's sons on their father's throne, he marched from York by the old high-road straight over the Keel: and in three days he was here at Dacor guesting with the monks. And his foes, who had come south too late to carry the war into the country of York, found nothing left for them to do but to agree with him as best they might.

Athelstan the king sat in Dacor hall, and the kings of the north swore to him as they had sworn to his father Eadward; and they gave their hostages into his hands, and renounced their dealings with idolators, namely those heathen Danes, the sons of Sigtrygg. "For," said Athelstan, "it is a shame if we, being Christian men and ruling Christian men, suffer these unbaptized pagans to ravage a Christian land, to burn the churches, and slay the monks, and rob the holy women our sisters. And if we three but stand together, we might clear the whole island of such knaves, and keep it clear for ourselves and our people, in peace and plenty."

To such at that while Owain and Constantine were well agreed, and all the readier because Athelstan's host was bigger than both of theirs.

Now Constantine had with him a young son of his, yet unchristened; and Athelstan, willing to knit himself closer to his new friends, said that he would stand godfather to the child: for in those days it was thought nearer than kinship by blood to be god-sib, or bound by holy water and the vows of baptism. So they brought the young child to Dacor church, and baptized him, and Athelstan stood his godfather.

When he was out of the water, and dressed in white, with white linen wrapped about his head, said the priest, "Here is water, king, as the Scripture says: what should hinder these from being baptized?" and he pointed to the Northmen who were standing without, and neither signed themselves with the cross nor bent the knee at prayer, but stared in through the church porch at the gilded imagery, and at the glass windows that Bishop Wilfrith's artificers had put up there in ancient times.

With that there was some shrinking back among those who had been most eager to look on: and Athelstan turned and fixed his gaze upon Swein, and spoke in the Northmen's tongue, for he knew it well.

"What sayest thou, friend? Wilt thou set the good example?"

"King," answered he, "I am a primesigned man and no church robber."

(For it must be known that many of the heathen were, as one may say, half-baptized: not that they meant to change their faith, but in order to have dealings with Christians, who might have no communion with the unbelievers).

"And," added Swein, "I have a mind to stay as I am." "But if I bid thee?" said the young king.

"Eadward thy father asked no such thing of me, when I took him for father and lord five years ago."

"Why, brother, I seem to have some inkling of thy face. Wast thou not the brawler of Bakewell?"

With that they laughed and Swein reddened and replied somewhat angrily "Saving a king's presence, I was no brawler, nor did Eadward call me so, to my face."

"Nor behind thy back, believe me, good man. For I tell truth when I say that after all were gone, and we were together at supper, my father said this to me: Boy, he said, we have done a good day's work; -- and I remember well how he cracked a great nut when he said it. But, said he, the best touch of my kingcraft, for many a year, has been the winning of that stout franklin and his fellows. And he charged me to leave no stone unturned to get the love of you Northmen, such as had settled peaceably upon our borders, and were busied in tilling lands hitherto waste, and in the carrying trade about our coasts. Now, what shall I give thee, since thou dost refuse the best gifts in my keeping?"

"King," said Swein, "they say we Northmen are greedy of gold and of blood, and of plunder alone. But by this I know that thou art wiser than other men, and bearest a grey head on those young shoulders. Truth it is when thou sayest that we are busied in tilling waste places, and in sea-trading; and this no man can gainsay. And indeed if at times we are ready to fight, and to fight our best, it is but to keep the homes we have made with our own hand, and to give them into the safe keeping of our sons."

Then Athelstan thought awhile and said "It has been in my mind now these many days that it would be a wise law, if every such brave seafaring merchant who has made three voyages with his own goods in his own ship, should be called Thane of England. Will that cap fit, friend?"

'Well, king," answered Swein, "many a voyage have I made with my own bulk in my own ship, cheaping a little and --"

"And taking what came in thy way?" broke in the king with a smile.

"That's as you may call it," said Swein.

"Well, for the law the Witan must look to it: and for thee, friend, come to me once again when thy mind is made up, after talk with the priest here, and with the good monks hard by."

The priest was glad to talk with Swein, and so were the monks, for that matter; and they went near to tearing him to pieces between them.

First he must away to see the monastery: and it was a carved shrine of gold and enamel, curiously worked, and holding their treasure. Swein looked for a crown of jewels at the least: but lo and behold it was only a lock of hair. But they said that this lock of hair was from the head of Cuthbert the great saint of their faith: they told Swein of the wonderful things which that lock of hair could do: how it had healed a young man who was diseased in his eyes, and such like, as was writ in the book of the venerable Bede. Swein wondered at the casket, but he took little heed of the relic, saying he thanked them, and he would come back to them when his eyes ached, if no wise wife at home could cure him.

So, finding him a hardened sinner, the monks turned him over to one who served the church at Dacor and was the priest of whom Athelstan spoke. He led him back to the chapel door, for he might bring him no farther, and bidding him look in, began to expound the mysteries of the cross and of the creed. It was no news to Swein Biornson, for many's the time he had heard such things before in Ireland, being indeed, as we have said, a half-baptized man already. But like many another in those days -- and these -- he would say to himself "Who knows?" and halting between two opinions, find much that was good in both.

Indeed it was of one near akin to him and little older in years that it was said, "He was a Christian, but prayed to Thee when he was at sea or in a tight place," as many men do even now.

Well, the priest preached to him, and he listened. He told of the life of Christ and His death and resurrection; of His love and law; of His Godhead and glory; and then of holy church, and the authority of it, and the mysteries of it, and the miracles of it: and long he spoke entreating his guest: until Swein laid his head on the frail shoulder of the priest, and said gravely:--

"Young man, these two-score years I have followed the gods of my fathers: and one while they have been good to me, and another while they have been evilminded. Now I will not lightly take a new god at the bidding of yonder king: nay, not to be Thane or Earl. Nor do I wholly understand all thy words, though meseems they are good words, and spoken from a good heart. But this I say, that no priest nor church shall ever be the worse for me or mine: and when my day of need comes, if thy God will help me, he shall be my God."

HAYMAKING was begun when our Northmen started on their journey to Dacor: and it was not yet finished when they came back, as empty-handed as when they went. When they were once again in the hall at home, and the red man had brought them safe and sound through flood and fell, Swein said to his wife, "Now that this man our guide had taken us in good faith through strange places and brought us home again, though little we have got by our travelling unless it be gain to be no worse off than we were, but the more assured of peace and quietness: I would not send him away without thanks, but I would give him a gift, even if it be a good weapon, or as many sheep as he can drive. Ask him then to make his choice, and he shall not find us stingy."

Unna agreed very readily to this: and when she had set it forth, the red man was silent for a time, looking round as if to choose something out of the house. At last he stood up, and made a long speech in his own tongue, waving his arms and shaking his head, While he spoke, they saw her grow pale as grass, and the tears came into her eyes.

"Swein," she said, "and friends all, here is a hard thing for us to answer: and indeed I know not myself what to do. For the man says that he has enough and to spare of all the goods he needs; and that he is a chief among his own people, so that he may not take a hired man's wages for service done rather to his king than to strangers. But if I understand aright he says that he saw at Dacor how men had respect to thee, Swein Biornson: and that even the great king of the Saxons spoke with thee friendly, as with a great chief. And moreover I gather from his words that he has some foresight from his own dreams or from a wise man's, that you strangers are to be mighty in this land, and that nothing will stand against you in the end: and that you will wipe his people from the face of the earth, and take from them the homes of their fathers. Now he says he would be thy friend and brother; and for a pledge of our peace, he would have nothing else but the fostering of one of our sons."

With that they all cried out astonished, and Swein laughing a little and harshly, said, "Tell him that we do not give our lads to giants and wild men of the woods nowadays, even if Signy gave her child to Sigmund once on a time, as the old song says."

"Nay," she said, "I will not anger him, or he will do us a bad turn one of these days."

"Tell him that we humbly thank his lordship for the honour, and one day we will wait on his lordship at his lordship's palace."

But the red man, though he could make nothing of the words, knew very well from the horse-laugh and the rough gesture of Swein that he was despised and his offer scorned: and before Unna could speak, he dashed his great club on the ground so that it tore a hole in the paving, and made the cobbles fly. Then turning round, he went swiftly and disappeared into the woods as before.

They looked at one another as if mischief should come next, but Swein said, "Take courage, wife, and never fear that I will give up child of ours to such a foster-father: and you, friends all, be on your guard, and keep a watch on the ford and the woods, so that we be not taken unawares. As for you, barnes, let me not say it twice: stay with your mother, and never wander away out of her sight, or the sight of the good fellows who have charge of you." Days passed, and months: and all that winter nothing was seen or heard of the red man: until it became a jest among them. For when any of the boys were unruly, they would say to snape him, "Folk would think the giant had thy fostering."

But what with fear of this wood-man, and what with lack of neighbours, Orm and Hundi and Thorstein grew up in their father's house, and were not put out to foster parents like many children of that day. For all that, they were not brought up in idleness, to be spoiled lads and good for nought; since, although there was plenty of servants, it was the way of these people to do their own work, and to show their mastery in craft of hand as well as in cunning of head.

There was a smithy on the farm; for how else could they shoe their nags or fettle their weapons? and Swein was proud to be called master smith of them all, and would spend many a winter day at the anvil, forging the iron they brought in their boats from the Pennings' people. So the boys picked up something of the craft, maybe not so workmanlike as others, and yet serviceably for the needs of people whose things were less for show than for use. Their fine jewellery and goldsmith's work they had from abroad; but even so there was always some conceit of daintiness or quaintness in the way they turned out their homely jobs, because their time was before them, and they liked smithying, and lingered over it as a pastime: curling the horns of a door-latch or a candlestick into ringlets with the tongs: twisting the bar of a horse-bit into a screw, and engraving a blade with devices or punching it into patterns. And if there is little of their work left to show, who knows, as one said who was learned in such matters, that the old carving-knife in the homestead is not the ancestral sword ground down, and so forth? In ancient graves and hidden hoards we do now and then find the smith's work of this heathen age, in the parts bordering upon the Lakeland mountains,

Beside smithying there was always wood-work to be done, for their houses were wooden, and many things for which we use potter's wares, they made of wood: as cups and platters and all sorts of vessels. In the winter evenings especially this work went on around the hearth, while the women spun and wove. The lads were not long at whittling sticks before they were set to make arrows and shafts for weapons and tools, and it was a proud day when they made their first piggin with hoops and staves complete, And from that they got to carving, since these people were as nice about their wood-work as their iron, and could not abide a blank kist-panel or door-post, after they had once got roof raised and land stubbed.

SPRINGTIME was now come, and the children of Greenodd went with their playmates from the thralls' cottages to roam the woods. For then were the hollows among the knolls by Crake side all carpeted with golden lilies and dim white wind-flowers. And when the time of these was over, bluebells, sweet scented, and growing as thick as grass, covered the glades. Thorstein, who was now six years old, and some of his playfairs were in the woods one day, and their game was to make a queen of the prettiest girl, dressing a bower for her and crowning her with bluebells. In the midst of it who should come suddenly upon them but a wild red man, bellowing, they said, like a bull, and shaking his great club as if he meant to kill them all. But he only caught the biggest and best looking of the boys, and dragged him off. When the boy bealed and screamed, the robber nipped him round the throat, and soon stopped his noise. The children ran home with their knees trembling, and said that a giant had got their playfellow to eat him. But whatever he did with him he did not eat him; for the next morning before the men could start to lait the lad, he came down the beck with his head broken.

Said Swein, "No use to shut the door when the roof has fallen in." Then he sent a good gift to the thrall whose child was lost, telling him to wipe his eyes with it: and forbade the youngsters wandering in woods or out of sight. So all was quiet for a time, and if there were uneasiness about robbers, it was no more than what everyone felt everywhere in those days, when by sea and shore men carried their lives in their hands, and trusted to luck to keep their women and children from bloodshed and slavery.

In the next winter there was much snow, and the distant mountains were curd-white, both at Yule and for many a week after, Even the moorlands were covered and the forests were choked: and when great storms blew, the mealy snow would drift in streaming clouds, and fill all the hollow places and the gills: so that many wild beasts were buried in the drifts, and many came down into the valleys, where the snow lay not so thick and melted away between whiles. Sheep and cattle needed double care; for though most of the stock was killed and hung in smoke, some beasts always had to be kept, and fed with the hay of the summer, and holly boughs, which the shepherds cut and let them pick up when they took them out from the byres and folds. Even so there was always danger of drifts, and the burying of whole flocks in the snow: and then they had to dig them out, which was a great labour for the men, but a fine playtime for Thorstein and his brothers. For to the boys the snow was like fairy-land, and rare enough to something of a marvel to children in sheltered Greenodd by the sea, What storms they feel come mostly from the warm south-west, and if the wind blows from the north-east it brings sunshine, with blue sky and black from that vanishes away before noon.

One day Thorstein went with the shepherds and their lads to an uplying fold to serve the sheep, and found the snow much trampled, as though wild beasts had been there, for all there was a high turf dike around it, with a sharp fence on the top such as no wolves were like to climb. So the shepherd began counting out the clock, in their way which Thorstein learnt from him:-- "Un, dau, tri, y-pedwar, y-pump: chech, y-saith, y-wyth, naw, deg." And we may say that our old folk still use this way of reckoning little changed but to make the words easier with rhyme, as:-- "Yan, tyan, teddera, medders, pimp; haata, slaata, sour, down, dick:--" and so forth.

When he had counted a score he marked it off on his fingers, or scored a notch on a stick, and began again. And so counting he found that two sheep were gone: and worse than that, they saw, by the blood on the snow and by the footprints, that thieves had cut their throats and carried them off. So away they went to track the thieves at once, which was easy enough because of the snow. Before long, stopping to listen, they heard a crackling of branches ahead, and shouted, and put Thorstein in the rear, and pressed forward. Then were seen through the leafless trees, or not men but giants they seemed, long and gaunt and red-haired. One had a sheep on his shoulders, and another had a sheep on his shoulders, not a little encumbered as they pushed their ways through the underwood and thick tangle.

The shepherds had gone too far to go back; and beside that, they were armed, while the thieves had only their cudgels. But when it came to blows, such was the tangle in the wood that they were soon scattered: one was stuck in a thicket, and another floored with a broken arm; and the robbers were off and away. So when they came to collect their forces there was one wanting, a shepherd's son. They shouted and searched the wood as well as they might, for it was beginning to grow dark. In the end they were forced to return home without him, and their sheep were gone and all.

When they brought Thorstein to the house and told their tale, Swein listened with a very long face, and saw to their hurts: for it was the chief's business to be surgeon, both to handle wounds until the blood stopped, and to set broken limbs and bind them. It was the lady's to make drinks of herbs for medicine. Some good drink Unna gave them, and they went home: but Swein and she talked late that night after Thorstein was asleep.

ALL that year king Constantine and king Owain were quiet, and held to the peace of Dacor. But king Guthferth Ivarson of Dublin, to whom Olaf Cuaran Sigtryggson had fled, was not in the treaty and thought himself in no way bound to refrain from attacking the realms of Britain, but quite otherwise. For it was an old use and wont of the heathen Vikings to plunder Christians whenever they got the chance: and there was now not only the open door to York, but friends within, the party of Sigtrygg's sons, were bidding him to come over.

So king Guthferth and his nephew Olaf Cuaran and their host crossed the sea, and landed, as our story has it, at Ellenburg by the mouth of the river Ellen in Cumberland, where now stands Maryport, and before those times stood some old Roman city. Thence there was the good road that the Romans had made, straight through the fells and between the two waters of Bassenthwaite and Derwent, and so to Penrith, and over the Keel. In a week or so they were again in York: but not for long. For as soon as Athelstan heard of it he went northward, and drove them home by the way they came. There was a great deal of confused fighting, of which folk will never know, and maybe never did know, the rights. And sorely he blamed Owain for giving the Danes passage through his kingdom. But Owain came off this time with the excuse that in Strathclyde he had enough on his hands, and could not be answerable for Vikings who forced their way through the extremest borders of his dominion. Yet when the same thing happened again and again and every time the viking host left behind it stragglers and settlers to hold strong places and good lands on the Cumberland coasts, as a flood tide leaves its wreckage on the shore, then the English king was forced to take harder measures with the Cumbrians, as the tale tells in the end.

Meanwhile Athelstan held counsel about that borderland which lay around Morecambe Bay, where our Northmen lived. Neither Swein nor any of his neighbours had come in to him, ready to be baptized and to take his service: or maybe he might have set one of them over these parts as Thane or Earl, to rule the country in his name. On the other hand, the land of Cartmel was already in the holding of the priests at York, and they no doubt were instant in their claims to take under them the whole of which they held a part. So Athelstan, for the good of his soul, and for the souls of the Northmen who should be brought into the fold, and for the better ruling of these outlying borders, gave to the priests of York Minster all Amounderness -- that is, Lancaster and the Fylde, and the land round about.

After a while came the summoner from York church, to take tithe and tax from the Northmen, as he was wont to do from the Cartmel people. But they made short work of him, before he ever got to Greenodd: and when next there was a meeting loud talk was held about the matter. Even Swein Biornson, though he had loved Athelstan when he saw him at Dacor, was angry with him now, for giving away what was not his own to give, and lands that he never had so much as set eyes on.

The stood up one and said "News, friends! I have been lately seafaring by way of the South-isles and thereabouts: and wherever I came the talk was that Olaf Cuaran had fled to Scotland, and that Constantine the king had received him as guest: and more than that, had given him his daughter to wife. Now, what think you of that, friends?"

There was a great hubbub when this came out, for not a man of them but knew what it meant, and they were glad to think that if they had a quarrel with Athelstan, friends would be easy to find. For by giving his daughter to Olaf the heathen, Constantine had already broken the peace of Dacor.

Well, some were for war, and some for waiting; and they talked it over this way and that, until Swein bade them have peace. "For," said he, "I know this Athelstan, that he is a brisk man and full of good counsel: and I know the Saxons that they are not to be despised. If we alone set ourselves up to make war we shall be fools: for they have men enough to sweep us off the face of the earth, as a thrall sweeps out a byre with a besom. But if Constantine and Owain and our kinsmen in the north are agreed, and come together to invade the south country, well and good. My rede is to lie still and watch the weather."

Now Mistress Unna was all this while in the house, cooking the supper for Swein and the chief men of the Thing, and little did she know that all the Northmen were being ruled by her counsels.

"To lie still and watch the weather," says Swein, and nodded his head and looked wisely round. "But," says he, "pity we sit so far away from these kinsmen of ours across the fells in the north: better it were for us if we could take counsel with them now then, and shape our plans together. For when we were called to Bakewell, I mind me that we knew nothing of what was forward. We went out for war, and found the rest of them jogging along as to a quiet and peaceable Thing-mote. And then again when we went to Dacor we knew nothing, and were but made fools of, and much better had stayed at home. Now if we fixed some place of meeting with Ketel and the others in the north, we should learn the news of those kings from time to time, and talk over the affairs of our whole kindred, as we do here among ourselves."

Then stood out one and said, "Swein Biornson and all, I have a friend from over the seas, new come from Iceland. Now in Iceland, mayhappen you know, there are many of you kindred who live as we do upon the lands they have taken, and owe no more than we owe to any man, lest of all to kings in other parts. For their worship and sacrifices they have temple-steads as we have, here and there: and for the punishment of evil doers and the atonement of quarrels, the godi of each temple-stead sees to it. But it appears that of late things have come to such a pass, that manslayers who have bee outlawed from one country-side have fled to another, and have been kept there as guiltless men, and thence have returned to do what harm they might on their old neighbours. And so there has been fighting and unpeace stirred up, and the authority of the godi set at nought, as if there was no law in the land. Therefore all the men of Iceland have taken counsel together, and hallowed one Thing-stead in the midst of the land; and at mid-summer they are to meet there, the chiefs and all the free men, under one law-speaker. And if any man has a grievance that cannot be settled at a Thing by his own godi, there at the Althing it will be judged by Raven Ketelson, the law-speaker over all, And there also they are to fix the feasts and seasons for the year that is to be: so that the whole land may be under one law, and be of one mind, and at peace within itself. Now it seems to me that if the Icelanders, being men famous for their wisdom, have taken this counsel, we too should do well to take the counsel of Swein Biornson, and join with our brethren of the north across the fells in such a spot as we may find convenient, mid-way between them and us: to talk over our common matters, and especially how we may ward the land we have made our own, against all its foes and ours."

With that they took their weapons and shouted "Aye" to this advice: and Swein said "Friends, since we have agreed that there should be this Althing established, it remains only to mark the place of it, and to bid our brethren in the north to meet us there. This place here we find good for a meeting because it is mid-most of all our land to the south of the wild fells: and he who comes from Eskdale on the west: and to Kentdale and to Duddoner-dale the ways are equal: and across the bay it is not far to go, whether by the sands or by the sea. Now, when we were coming home from Dacor, we started in the company of Ketel and his men, and when we parted from them they had still a day and a half to go before they were home, while we had two days and a half: though doubtless on kenned roads, and if we had nothing to carry nor any hindrances by the way, we might make short work of it. But I say that if we went a two days' journey from their home, and met upon the great road that leads through the heart of the fell country, that meeting-place should be our Thing-stead. And I think it would not be far from a little dale you remember well, near the foot of the mere with the wath in it, and at a spot where four dales meet. A fair place it was, with a likely howe and a conny bit of flat that offered well for a Thing-field, and everything else fit for our purpose."

So, to make matters short, they sent the arrow, by which men were bid to a meeting, round the sea-coast until it came to Ketel's holm on the Solway ands up the firth of Eden. The Northmen thereaway met together and agreed on their part to set off on the day appointed: Swein and his neighbours set off on the same day: and their two companies fell in with one another by Thirlmere, which they thenceforward called Brackmere, from the Thing-brekka or hill of assembly, which they hallowed at Legburthwaite, as we still call the place, forgetting maybe that we say Law-burg-field, being the midmost spot in all Lakeland from Solway to Walney. And having hallowed the place and held their meeting, they made their tryst for next midsummer, and went their ways home.

Lucky it was for our Northmen that they took Unna's counsel, and listened to Swein when he told them of the briskness of Athelstan. For Constantine, who had received Olaf Cuaran and given him his daughter, before ever he could draw his host together to invade England, while he was yet preparing for war, saw the ships of Athelstan bear down upon his coast; and fleeing inland, whom should he meet but Athelstan himself with an army, come through Strathclyde to avenge the peace of Dacor. And great mischief was done before the English went home with pledges of a new peace wrung from the Scots, who for their part had no mind to keep it, any more than their oaths of seven years ago, and only waited for the day when they might take their revenge.

NOW the story leaves these mighty kings and their wars, to tell of Thorstein Sweinson, and how he went up the river Crake, and how he found the great water at the river-head: the same that old folk call Thurston-water, and we mostly call Coniston lake, from the name of our village hard by it.

In the year after the ravaging of Scotland, Thorstein was thirteen winters old, and a grown lad: sturdy at all games of strength, and skilful enough in all kinds of work that a lad was set to do. He could catch a nag on the fell, and ride it home through the heather; make an arrow, and shoot it to the mark: handle the smith's tools or the woodwright's: swim and row, wrestle and race with his brothers, and often beat them, and always beat the thralls' boys. Most of all he took pleasure in going about with the herds, to look after the beasts and the sheep on the summer-hills: and when they were once out and away, he would egg them on to take him farther, to see the little dells and winding valleys on either side of the Crake, as if he might find there something of the great world which he had heard about and longed to wander through.

It was nigh upon seven years since the wild men of the fells had made their last raid and carried off the thrall's son: but still Swein would often warn his boys to keep within sight of home, and bid them stay by their mother if he himself were abroad. But he might as well have warned the smoke not to go out of the chimney; for northern blood stirred in the lads, and Thorstein often looked down the firth to seaward, and wished he were big enough to go viking in a ship of his own. Orm said he would go with him if it were trading he meant: and thought that they might make a deal of money by selling the thralls' children. Upon which Thorstein hit him in the face, and said, "Thou shan't get our little May-queen for one." And he spoke no more of his plans to Orm.

Hundi was a better friend to Thorstein, and they talked a deal together of the travels they should take and the deeds they should do. There were those great mountains in the distance, always beckoning to them; peopled with giants and fairies,-- had not their father often told them of the stone man that kept the road beyond Grasmere? and had they not the dim remembrance, not easily let die, of the red giant? They knew by hearsay of wide lakes among the fells, lying all alone for the first adventurer to take and hold. The beck that flowed through their fields, and the greater Leven that they could see from the howe or from Legbarrow winding far away among the hills, came down, so the Welshmen said, out of waters full of fish and haunted by fowl in countless flocks. And as they sat on the rocks at Crakemouth when the tide was low, moulding clay arrows in the rune-shaped clifts and chinks of the smooth rock, they wondered what troll or fairy had been there with chisel and mallet, and what more marvellous marvel there might be to find in the unknown wilds beyond. Crake, the rocky river, came down night and day, sometimes fierce and swollen, sometimes faint and shrunken, but always singing over its rocks the same song of enticement. "If we could only track the beck," they said, "and find the great water, and take the fish and fowl, and build a house by the shore and make a boat!"

So at last the wish grew into a plan, and the plan into a purpose. When nobody was looking they were to slip away; follow the Crake to its mere, take the land about it, and make a backwood bigging of their own. They filled a bag with meal, took their knives in their belts, and set off one morning early, as though they were going for a day with the shepherds. Where the fields ended, they took the path to the outlying folds: and when they were near the folds, they turned through the woods to the river, so that they might not be seen, and scrambled for a great way up the stony channel. It was only half filled, because, as often happens in those parts, the spring had been dry, and the rainy weather was yet to come on, after the days began to shorten.

For a while it was easy work: there is a flat shore on the left hand, and they could run over the shingle even where the water went swiftly and fell in eddies and foam over rock-ridges. But soon the hills on either side close in: the banks are steep: the river foams beneath thick trees which spread their branches, making the squirrel's bridge overhead. Thus it is even nowadays, but in old times at many places great firs had fallen right across the deep channel, or huge oaks had lost their hold of the rocky bank from the very weight of age, and had rolled into the torrent, to be weirs and dams that held the water and flooded the banks: so that what with the rock walls, or the sodden tufts of moss and fern, wherever the gill-banks were brant, the lads made but little way. And whoever has stood upon Spark Brig and looked up-bank and down-bank, and dreamt over a time when all the mills and houses were unbuilt, and the land uncleared, and nothing but wild timber, dank and dense, filled the dale, with the logs that rotted where they fell, and the brambles and creepers that matted the growing trunks together: and wild bulls and wild boars, wolves and cats, hag-worms and lizards, tenanted the place:-- he will know what the adventure of those two boys was like. And whoever has fought his way up one of our moorland gills where the land is still rough, will know how they stumbled over the shallows, and scrambled over the boulders, and waded the mires, and swam the dubs as they came though the jaws of Crake, and out into the easier ground by the eyot beneath Lowick Green, as it is now. There, if the river was less rough, the trees were still thick and the banks steep: and on the right hand the fells seemed to come nearer: and standing out through the black fir-trees high over-head, white brows of crags seemed to frown and nod above them, as they sat on a great stone in mid-stream to take their breath.

The kingfishers flitted past, blue flashes in the green gloom. Where a ray of sunshine came in through the vault of trees overhead and pierced the brown water, they could see, beneath the mossy rocks fringed with fern, little dippers running over the bottom among the trout, and as free as if they were on dry land, for all the rushing of the water. Now and again a wild animal ran down to drink, and started back crashing into the wood: but there was no sign of houses, nor of men dwelling in this uncouth wilderness,

They toiled on afresh, mounting the stream where it breaks over long-drawn ledges, around a rocky eyot at a sharp bend, and through a swampy tarn (as it was then) till they came to the spot where Lowick bridge now stands. It was high noon. They sat down on the steep bank along the swamp; and taking handfuls of the meal from their bag, soaked it with the clear fresh water and made their dinner. When it was done, said Hundi, "Well, old forge-ahead, how much farther? For my part I call the shepherds' tales all Welsh lies. There is no great water that we can see, only this dirty puddle: and we shall have work enough to get home before supper-time, down the screes we have climbed and this waste of rubbish."

"Nay," said Thorstein, "the beck must come from somewhere, and I mean to see the end of it."

"What, and sleep in a tree like a squirrel?"

"Why not, if I must, thou slug a-bed? The nights are short and warm enough."

"Well then," said Hundi, "I will sit on the howe over there, and wait until the conquering hero comes back. I'll count six score, and then."

"And then go home like a wise lad to thy mother, and say Thorstein is coming tomorrow with news, and a great fish out of Thorstein's mere; for it will be none of Hundi's."

"Hundi's howe is here, Thorstein's mere is nowhere." And indeed afterwards the story says that Hundi lived hard by, and in the end was buried on that howe: but that is still to tell. Said he, "A wilful beast must gang to his own gate," and I'll not mar sport, nor splash thy mere to frighten thy whales. Come, Thorstein, don't be a fool. Turn back with me now, or rue it!"

"Neither, dear lad, and don't anger me, but hie thy ways home, and bid them not to worry. Happen I'll light on my journey's end sooner than we think for."

"Happen thou'll light on mischief sooner than thou think'st for. Come along, I say."

"Go along, I say. We can't miss the road, for it's down-bank for thee and up-bank for me to the end."

"Nay, that's an ill speech," said Hundi, "for parting."

"Well then, home for thee, and away in the wild world for me, for evermore. Will that suit?"

"Nor that neither. I wish thee luck, and thy big fish; and I'll foreset the scolding that awaits thee: and have thy breakfast kept warm: for yon bag of meal will be gone before to-morrow, if I know aught."

"Good lad, then; we part friends:" and Hundi turned and slid down the bank and splashed down stream: for he was always an easy-going lad."

But Thorstein toiled on as before, and found his work no less, at first: for he had to force his way up Lowick force and through the swamps at its head. But then he saw, at last, rising above the trees, a crest and a cone, of high rugged fells, distant indeed, but not a mere blue line as he had seen them from the heights of Greenodd. The afternoon sun threw its lights and shadows on the great scars of Dowcrags, and the rocks of the Coniston fells stood out bold in the blue air.

The lad's heart leapt up, and he shouted as he plunged again in the rapids that that swirled beneath the wild steeps on his right, and the long dark slopes of Blawith, the Blue-wood, on the other hand. By and by he was lost again in the crooked ravine where Nibthwaite Mills now stand, where the water narrowed to half its former breadth, and slid over ranks of rock, sloping downwards like carven tables, or a giant's stairway, sunken and aslew. But at the head of every force, there were the great fells again in sight, and every time nearer and clearer, grander and more wonderful. At last he came to a sweet round tarn. It was bedded in the woods, and the likeness of every several branch lay upon the water. Thorstein shouted: but then he stayed. Was this the mere he had come so far to seek? and no more than this?

He pressed on, round the miry edges of the tarn, and stumbled through the narrows of Arklid. Hitherto the stream had been ever narrower, and, but for a few ledges and flats, ever steeper: but here it suddenly became both still and deep, and opened out into breadth. Thorstein's heart beat hard when the wood thinned, and the waterway broadened, and the world grew brighter, and lo, beyond, a great gleam of blue, and a blaze of golden sky.

Close beside him, seal-bushes fringed the shilloe banks, bulrushes stood in their ranks right out into the shallows, and purple flags and white and yellow water-lilies lay along the edges of the lake. On either hand, seaming the deep forest that clothed the sides of the valley, sharp craggy spurs came down, as it were gateposts to the hall of hills; and broke at their bases into long nabs, rounded here and rocky there, running far out into the mere and tufted to the water-edge with dark oaks and dark firs. And between there were blue nooks of ripple reflecting the evening sky, and the wild ducks and teal swam through the ripple, and the gulls floated above it: and in lound spots a hundred rings showed how the fish were rising.

Thorstein climbed a howe on the left: And as he climbed, the lake opened up before him. Beyond the nearer woods there was the deep of blue, and the lonely island in the midst of it: and from his feet, away into the uttermost distance, the huge fells, tossing like the breakers on a stormy beach, and rolling away and afar like the heaving waves of the sea. And over them late sunset brooded in the north, with bars of level cloud, purple and gold, and fading rose-flecks overhead.

Thorstein slept on in the tree long after the day had dawned through those level clouds: for at mid-summer in Lakeland it is never black night; the sun only dives, as it were, behind a fell or two, and up again; and you can follow its track by the light that travels round the north, like the ripples which betray a diver in shallow water. But this dawning was a dull one, for those level clouds had lowered, and thickened, and turned to rain: and wind came up from the seaward, as the gulls had foretold. And yet it mattered little to the lad in his oak-tree lair, except that no loud singing of birds awoke him, and the dimness of light let him sleep on, when he should have been well on his way homeward. For as to the plan of taking land and building a house and a boat, that was out of his mind now that Hundi was gone. To take land, one must go round it with fire, and have witnesses to the deed. Some other day he would come back, now that he knew the road. And it was lonely waking there in the damp mist, hungry and stiff, with all that waste of wilderness to tread before ever he saw home again.

Back along the bank of Crake and round the little tarn went Thorstein until he heard, in the woods on his right hand, shouting, and the voices of men. At once his heart came into his mouth and he stood stock-still to listen. Could it be Hundi and the Greenodd folk in search of him? What if they should go forward and find his mere, and he away and out of it all? What of the chance of a good bag of meal or a barley-cake somewhere about them? For he was both clemmed and starved. So he crept through the wood, and now and again the noise came louder. He followed it, slowly forcing his way among the deep fern and the brambles under the great trees. The voices were heard more plainly now, singing and shouting in a strange manner. It was not Hundi and the Greenodd folk: but who? Thorstein was drawn by a great desire to know this secret of the woods, and to add one more marvel to the story he should tell at supper.

On the top of a little howe, clear of trees, but rocky and ferny like the wildest moorland, sat huge men, red-haired and red-bearded, crane-legged and clumsy handed and jolter-headed, clothed rudely in skins, and devouring great ugly gobbets of flesh from a roebuck they had killed, and seemed to eat with little or no cooking. Thorstein gazed at them openmouthed and astonished: it was like a dream of the wonders he had pictured to himself, but never fully hoped to set eyes on.

The branch he held by, snapped: and forthwith there was a terrible shout, and a crash on the head, and he seemed as in a dream to be falling down a dark pit.

Then it was all light, grey light, and no green gloom of the woods; and beneath him the red ling-blossoms fled away, as he was carried by someone or something swiftly over the wide moor, He began to know that he was weary and in a great pain of his head; and at every stride of his bearer he was jerked so that it hurt him. He kicked and struggled; the huge red man put him into the middle of a deep heather-tuft, and set himself down to look at the lad, as a cat watches a mouse.

Then Thorstein rose on his knees and tried to scramble away, but the giant man just reached out and gave him a great butt with his hand, that sent him heels over head, scratching his face in the heather. Then the same thing happened again; and the third time Thorstein plucked himself together and flew at the giant, snatching out his knife, and minded in his rage to stick it in anywhere or anyhow. But the giant never moved off the stone where he sat: he just caught the knife in one hand, and with the other crushed the lad down. He looked at the knife long and curiously, then he nodded and laughed to himself. Then he looked at Thorstein were he lay on his back, kicking up the ling-blossoms: and then he waved the knife as if to draw it over Thorstein's throat. Thorstein shut his eyes and his mouth as tightly as he could.

BEYOND the heather was the giant's home, on the fell be